The Tragic Backstory Writer

A portrait of a gamer creating her character.

There's a Tragic Backstory Writer in every group. These gamers never make well-adjusted characters who come from happy homes. Their characters suffer through tragic losses, horrible abuse, and deeply buried psychological damage. Usually their character notes open with the death of a loved one and end with situations that trigger their PTSD.

I'll cop to being one such gamer. I'm on the bottom drawing characters and dreaming up sad backstories to give them pathos, and my favorite Dungeons and Dragons character, Baalhano, is up top during the worst day of his life - the day his sister killed herself.

Vector drawing in Adobe Illustrator.

Gamer detail. I want to show the gamers exactly as they are, preferably in their normal habitat. I spend most of my free time drawing characters, so my self-portrait had to include my Wacom tablet.

Baalhano and Yzebel detail. I wanted to show the big tragedy in my favorite character's backstory, so I chose the night Baalhano's sister threw herself from the balcony. Baalhano showed up just as she jumped, and in true tragic backstory fashion, he never got to say goodbye.

Gamer face detail. I'm told I make a super-serious face when I draw.

D20 detail. I wanted to throw in as many crits as possible.

Baalhano detail. He's usually a handsome guy, so it was fun to show his face twisted with grief.

Blood detail. I referenced the blood from my earlier Yzebel piece to tie this into Baalhano's recurring nightmares. Tragic backstory characters tend to have those.

Yzebel detail. Yzebel had a different complexion from her brother, but I chose to make her extra pale because of all the blood loss.

Just like everything else on my site, this is all hand drawn - no filtered photos, no live paint or live trace funny business. Just a lot of little marks made with my Apple Pencil in Adobe Draw and my Wacom Cintiq in Adobe Illustrator. Powered by Adobe Portfolio